Jill focusing during barre in Martha Tornay’s ballet class

The Young Dancers have the option of attending a forty-five minute warm up class each morning, lead by counselors. I met Jill in between her warm up and ballet classes. “Warm up was really fun,” Jill told me while stretching on the studio floor. “I’ve been to every single one so far… we did actual jumping jacks and crunches and stuff like that, which I really like.” I asked Jill what she thinks of her ballet class. This summer she worked with Martha Tornay, but her first summer at the Festival Jill took Shonach Mirk-Robles’ more placement and anatomy-focused class. “Martha’s different from Shonach, but I started last year to understand what Shonach wants us to do with placement and everything. I feel it’s definitely making a difference.” Next I asked Jill what it was like coming back a second year.

BDF: Coming back last year, what were you most excited about? What changes have you noticed in your dancing since last summer?

JS: I came back this year because I made a lot of good friends, and my teachers at home said I improved so much when I came back. And I’ve been most excited about meeting new people and seeing the teachers again. I’m taking hip hop this year which I took last year, but I decided to take improvisation this year because I can’t do that at home. Last year I took Modern Repertory with Sean Dorsey. It was awesome, but this year I wanted to do something outside of my comfort zone.

Modern teacher Tristan Koepke instructs Jill and her fellow students

After ballet I watched Jill fly across the floor and find a sense of groundedness and continuum in Tristan Koepke’s modern class. The next time we touched base was during lunch in Bates’ renowned Dining Commons, home to an incredible array of culinary choices.

BDF: Tell me about your morning!

JS: In ballet I really liked the waltz that we did across the floor, just because I like combinations like that and feeling the movement. And in modern I loved the improvisational warm up that we did this morning, it was so different from tendus which we usually do, and I got to really feel my body.
BDF: And how was lunch?

Jill enjoys lunch with her friends in Bates College’s Dining Commons

JS: The food here is amazing! There’s nothing like food from home, but you get amazing meals every single day here.

After lunch students can be seen lounging on the grassy fields outside, relaxing in the sun before starting afternoon classes. Just before 2:00pm Jill walked with friends over to Heidi Henderson’s improvisation class. Throughout the three weeks Heidi covered all different kinds of improv techniques both individual and collective, including contact improvisation skills and how to follow an improv score. Heidi worked to create a community of trust among the dancers, which allowed them to follow their instincts. While observing Jill in class I watched the dancers practice an activity where they stood shoulder to shoulder up in a row while individual dancers took turns diving into the others arms, learning how to be vulnerable and share weight.

Jill practices contact improvisation skills in Heidi Henderson’s class

For her last class of the day Jill headed to Shakia Johnson’s fourth period hip-hop class. Though energy can wane after a full day of dancing, Shakia knows how to pump everyone up. She teaches a full range of hip-hop styles including nineties, house, breaking, and popping and locking. Each class ends in a cipher, encouraging dancers to try out new moves and develop their own creative voice as the rest of the class cheers them on.

I touched base with Jill later that night for her hall meeting. Every evening the Young Dancers meet in their hall clusters at 9:00 pm to come together as a group and debrief their days. Their counselor asks them the “question of the day” and they each go around and answer. Jill’s counselor Mary Anne Bodnar asked the girls what their funniest memory so far was. They repeatedly erupted into laughter trying to get their stories out. After the meeting Jill showed me her room, and I sat with her and her roommate, Clare Moberg, to talk more in depth about their time at the Festival. Clare is 15 and comes from Athens, Ohio.

BDF: How do you think the social life at the Young Dancers Workshop impacts your experience?

JS: Hugely. And the dancing makes us closer, so the first day when we didn’t dance we were kind of skeptical, but then after we danced together we were ten times closer.

BDF: Have you been to other intensives or dance camps? How is Bates different?

JS: I haven’t been to any but this one, but I don’t think any of them are this supportive and collaborative, and everybody’s friends with each other. I feel like other ones are really competitive, so I feel like this is really unique.

CM: I feel like it’s really great because people make connections and it’s not just about dancing all day. It’s about why you’re dancing all day.

Jill and her hall mates celebrating a birthday in their hall meeting

BDF: What’s your relationship with your counselors like?

JS: These counselors are so different. They dance with us! When I went to another camp I didn’t really know the counselors because I didn’t see them at any time throughout the day, but here I feel like they’re part of the community.

BDF: What’s the atmosphere in your classes like?
JS: It’s super positive always, we ask so many questions and the teachers are always there to help, it’s not stressful at all. It’s different from how I learn at home but they’re super good at adjusting.

Next I asked the dancers about seeing performances. Each week at Festival the dancers see a professional show. This summer they saw DanceNOW, a show presenting many of their faculty members, and Dorrance Dance, the New York based tap company that’s been making huge waves this year.

JS: I’m really glad that we get to do that, there’s one thing to be in the classroom and be dancing in performances, but it’s a whole other experience to watch real shows that’s just as important. As performers you never get to watch shows, and it’s great to see faculty in a whole new light. The Q&A session after was cool too, because you watch dance and sometimes don’t understand all of it and it leaves you with questions.

Jill and Clare in their dorm room in Rand Hall

Jill is known at BDF for her jar of memories – when good things happen she writes them down on little pieces of papers and puts them into a glass jar to look through and share with her friends and family during the year. On her desk this summer stood the full jar from last year next to a new jar, rapidly filling up. I asked her if there were any memories that made her really want to come back. “When I got home I remember saying ‘I just want to go back!’” she told me. “I just remember having so much fun with everybody and improving so much.” Clare added, “The experience in general, it’s very comfortable, you feel very content – you love the feeling and you want to come back.”

Clare is planning on visiting Jill in Connecticut this winter – she’s never been to New York City, and they’re hoping to go together to see shows and take classes, tapping further into the dance network they’ve started to build here during their time at the Bates Dance Festival.

This post was written by Chava Lansky.  Chava is the BDF Social Media Intern for the 2016 summer.

Tristan introduces the Young Dancers Workshop faculty during their Final Showing

BDF: How long have you been here at Bates, and how did you originally find the Festival?

TK: I came as a Young Dancer. Twelve years ago. Some of the students at my small studio in central Wisconsin found the Festival through Dance Magazine, sort of randomly, and they really enjoyed it, so I came a couple of summers later. I came back the next year, and since then I’ve been here in many different capacities… this is my tenth summer! Total.

BDF: And what roles have you played here?

TK: Young dancer, general participant (of the Professional Training Program), I was a counselor, then head counselor… and now co-director and teacher of modern dance technique.

BDF: Can you give a short bio of your dance experience as influenced by BDF?

TK: I can say when I first came here I only had a couple years of formal training under my belt, I was pretty new to dance. Not new to movement because I’d practiced a lot of taekwondo as a kid, and then I found tap and then eventually ballet, modern, etc. But coming to BDF was the first time I saw professional dance companies.

BDF: Do you remember the first show you saw here?

TK: Larry Keigwin, Keigwin and Company. Back in one of its original incarnations. Larry and his dancer, Nicole Wolcott, together taught repertory, so I was able to work in this immersive way with this exciting company. I made some of my best friends and I started collaborating with them right then. It’s been a really great home-base check in. I came a bunch before college, and then I went to school and didn’t come until I was finished with university, it was a really nice bookend to kind of be back in a similar place and see what had shifted. I’ve probably found my biggest dance mentors here. Karl Rogers mainly, he’s a big friend/mentor of mine, someone I’ve worked with for many years. Jobs I’ve gotten from here, best friends I’ve gotten from here… it’s home.

BDF: How have the relationships you’ve made at Bates impacted your experience in the dance world?

TK: I wouldn’t be where I am professionally, beyond this role and in the dance world at large. I’m currently doing some work for Doug Varone, who I met here. I’ve made specific relationships here, but I also learned an approach for building relationships in dance; in every city around the country are people from here that I’ve taken class with and shared intimate community space with, that I feel I can trust and rely on if I’m visiting or touring, or can call up if I’m coming through town — and I’ll both have a place to stay and they’ll say, “oh do you want to teach a master class while you’re here?” and that sort of thing. Just about everywhere.
BDF: How has the Festival changed during your time here?

TK: My experience has changed more than the Festival has. What’s so great about the community is that a lot of people return, so a lot of people feel like this is home in a lot of ways. I’ve definitely gotten to know it in so many different capacities, living in an immersive way (as a counselor). And now I’ve gotten a bit more space and I can see it all with a bit more clarity. I think it’s been interesting as I get older and step into different positions here to see people coming in for the first time, and have their eyes widened so quickly. I always experience that with Young Dancers, but now with more space and experience I see that in the Professional Training Program too. I come to the Festival as a dancer or a guest or I’m working, etc., and I see all these college students or just recently post-college students just suddenly being exposed to so much outside of their comfort zone. So my relationship to that has changed, but I think that’s what’s so special about being here, that eye opening experiences are really fostered and created in a non-competitive space.

BDF: What do you think it is specifically that opens people’s eyes, that seems new?

TK: I think that sometimes just simply that dance can be supportive. That dance is many different languages, but culminating in this one idea, this texture of life that we’re all working with, that we’re using as a means to build community and healthy relationships with each other. That dance can be a tool for that, not just a tool for wanting to one up or each other, or get the job, or do the trick better than anyone else. But that we can really find value in other people’s skill sets, artistry, approach, philosophies, in movement and life, etc.

BDF: Building on that response, how does the Festival differ from other places you’ve been in the dance world?

TK: I think that its focus is less on who’s the latest voice within the dance community at large that’s getting the most attention; we’re less focused on that and more on who are the best teachers, who is really going to offer people the best training and cultivation of self, how do we cultivate these dancers that come here to empower them to go out into the world and do what they want to do, either in the dance world or not, and our focus isn’t on just promoting trendy artists to seduce more people into coming. Which is not to knock other places or say there isn’t value in giving platforms to cutting edge voices. But what we really excel at here is long-term cultivation of community and artistry through dance. And following artists consistently through the trajectory of their careers, not only at the moment when they’re “hot.”

BDF: Can you describe the ethos of Bates in one or two sentences?

TK: Development of community by exploring dance and artistry in a nurturing environment.

BDF: Any favorite memories from your time here?

TK: Here’s one: that time that I ugly cried during the Young Dancers showing when they took their first port de bras because I was so moved by the work and the passion and eagerness they had. Another favorite memory, those times when I step outside the dorm and I find one camper who plays the fiddle, one camper who plays the guitar, and two campers having an improvisation contact jam on the lawn in front of these musician friends. Little magical moments like that don’t happen everywhere. Sometimes I think this is like a collection of the best freaks. We find kindred spirits here, and especially for teenagers, for young dancers who live all over the country, the world, etc., it’s so special for them to find one another here. There’s common ground. At least there’s dance, even if it’s not the same kind, or the same training, there’s one commonality in our activities, but it goes beyond just being in the activity of dance. People who find dance often have a similar approach to life, or how they want to live, or how they engage in their interest, and I think that’s why a lot of dancers become tight friends with other dancers, and there are these little webs of community. It’s not just because we like to dance, that’s part of it, but it’s a philosophy of living that draws us to dance, beyond making shapes with our bodies.

BDF: Do you have a piece of advice for someone who would be coming for the first time?

TK: Stay curious about as much as possible for as long as you can.

This post was written by Chava Lansky.  Chava is the BDF Social Media Intern for the 2016 summer.

Q: You’ve made it through the first week! What’s something that you learned this week, were surprised about, or was unexpected?

• Aya: Before I felt like each time they told us to improvise I was dreading it, but now I’m used to it and I’m surprised that I actually enjoy it.
• Jordan: I’m not as sore as I thought I was going to be! I’ve learned different ways of taking care of my body, which stretches are good and which to stay away from, how to tell if something is soreness or injury.
• Aislinn: I came in with a preexisting injury and everyone’s been really supportive and helpful in how to treat it.
  

  Students enjoying lunch in our fabulous dining hall.

• Gabby: As it’s my second year here it’s very different from the previous year… In the past year I’ve worked on how to balance more and keep myself aligned, and feel my body all in one piece.
• Ethan: I’ve been challenged physically, mentally, and artistically.
• Mai-Leah: I’ve never sweat so much that I’ve had to wring out my clothes!
• Isabelle: I’ve met all kinds of people here that have the same level of technique as me but very different choreographic inspiration.
• Carlos: This is actually a great opportunity for dancers who haven’t had a lot of experience and training. I’ve been able to just come and join in and be a part of something.

This post was written by Chava Lansky.  Chava is the BDF Social Media Intern for the 2016 summer.